The William C. Morris YA Debut Award, funded by the William C. Morris Endowment, honors the best book by a previously unpublished author writing for teens. A shortlist is announced in December each year.

"Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life"

Profiled by a racist police officer in spite of his excellent academic achievements and Ivy League acceptance, a disgruntled college youth navigates the prejudices of new classmates and his crush on a white girl by writing a journal to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the hopes that his iconic role model's teachings will be applicable half a century later.

Raised in a white supremacist compound where he was honored for his acts of violence before killing his own father, 14-year-old Nate is placed in the custody of his uncle and starts over with a new identity before forging an unexpected bond with a kind boy he was taught to hate.

Struggling to secure her identity as an Arab Indian-American hijabi teen who loves pop culture and aspires to a career in photography, Janna Yusuf falls for a boy she cannot date and considers exposing a person with a monstrous nature who is pretending to be a saint in their tightknit Muslim community.

A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and a narcissistic mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school before accepting an invitation to tour other art schools on the West Coast.